top step. He was very pale, Barty always
had a pasty face, Larry thought, but this whiteness was different, and
there was a look in his eyes that made Larry, over-strung, tuned to
vibrate to ill tidings, catch his arm, and say:

"What is it? Tell me quick!"

Barty did not answer at once. He seemed as if he could not speak. He
came into the hall and shut the door behind him and leaned against it,
one hand still on the handle, his breath coming short and fast.

"My father was drowned last night!" he said at last, in a low, hurried
voice. "He drove into the river. The flood was up on the road. Wait,
Larry! That isn't all--" he went on quickly, holding up his other
hand to keep Larry from speaking. "That's bad enough, God knows! But
this other thing is Disgrace!"

Larry waited.

"It isn't easy to tell you," said Barty, moistening his dry lips.
"There's just one good thing about it, my father didn't know--"

"What _is_ it? Look sharp!"

Larry was shaking with the strain of waiting for this withheld horror.

"Tishy was caught out by the flood last night; she didn't come home--"

"What! She also--?" stammered Larry.

"I wish to God she were!" said Barty, fiercely. "No. But while my
father was going to his death, maybe when he was drowning itself, she
bolted with Ned Cloherty! They went to Dublin on the mail--a porter at
the station saw them--there's no doubt about it!"

Larry sat down by a table, and put his head on his arms and tried to
think. His brain was whirling. He had covered his eyes, because he
knew if he saw Barty's tragic face again he would laugh, and if he
began to laugh, he said to himself, God only knew when he would stop.
It was a fatal trick of his nerves, he could never make Barty
understand. He would be shocked and scandalised for ever.

The Doctor drowned! He must fix his mind on that. He mustn't think of
Tishy; if he did, he knew that this horrible, inhuman surge of joy
that was pulsing in him would betray itself in his face, would
overwhelm him, like the flood in the river, would sweep away all
decency, sympathy, would leave him bare of all that he ought to feel
and express. (But to think that he hadn't to get married to-day! Oh,
blessed, beautiful Cloherty!) He was going to be very angry with
Cloherty, as soon as he had pulled himself together. Cloherty had
behaved like a blackguard; he had blackened Larry's face; he had
shamed him; had stolen his girl--(but, for all that, oh, Blessed and